Padres Preview: 07/14 vs. Giants

We're officially in the second half of the 2017 season. Today the Padres come back from the All-Star Break and open up a homestand with a series against the NL West basement dwellers, the San Francisco Giants.

Clayton Richard takes the mound to open up this weekend set at Petco Park. He's coming off one of his better starts of the season, a six-inning effort against the Phillies on the road to close out his first half. He gave up just one run on five hits and a walk with two strikeouts, and he probably would have stayed in the game longer if not for a rain delay at Citizens Bank Park that day.

Richard has plenty of experience against the Giants. Throughout his career, he's faced the Giants 19 times - more than any other team except for the Dodgers. In those 19 appearances (16 starts) he is 6-6 with a 3.98 ERA ND 1.366 WHIP. This will be his third time facing them this season after going 0-1 in his first two attempts, in which he threw a combined 11 1/3 innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on 11 hits and four walks.

The Giants will turn to Johnny Cueto to kick off their second half. After earning an All-Star nod with San Francisco last year, the veteran righty is not having the same success here in 2017. He's 6-7 with a 4.51 ERA in 18 starts so far. But for the sake of the tanking Padres, hopefully Cueto can get back to his old self against a team he's pitched well against in the past. In 13 career starts against the Padres, Cueto is 8-4 with a 2.93 ERA and 1.065 WHIP. That includes a solid seven-inning performance at Petco Park back in April of this year. He kept the Friars to two runs on five hits and three walks, striking out seven along the way.

Game time: 7:10 pm PT

TV: FSSD, Fox Deportes San Diego (Sp.)

Radio: FM 94.9, XEMO 860 (Sp.)